P-Brain

Being pregnant does strange things to your brain. You used to be a very responsible, reliable person, then over night you transform into an overly sensitive, forgetful, absentminded creature who will have sudden undeniable urges to go to burger king. I digress, over the past 4 1/2 months I've been keeping track of the most winning of my p-brain moments.

1. I cannot remember for the life of me when church starts, every sunday. Not super funny but when you play the piano and organ, it's kind of important that you're at least on time if not 10 min early.

2. Showing up to work an hour early. Turning on all the lights, music, computers, and even vacuuming for 15 min before realizing that no one is going to show up for another hour.

Layton still loves me even though I'm crazy!

3. Calling a girl from work about a prom dress and leaving a voice mail, but wait...getting to the part where I leave our phone number and completely forgetting what that number might be (I've been leaving messages with this phone number for almost 2 years now) and just saying a string of random numbers, then hanging up in embarrassment. Finally, having to call back and leave another message with the right number.

4. Being super sensitive to smells, and noises. One night we were laying in bed and I could hear a clicking noise. I kept asking Layton if he could hear it, but no. Just me. After a while I figured it out; I was hearing Layton blink. Yes that's right folks I could hear him blink and it was keeping me awake. Oh my.

5. Showing up 12 hours early for a flight. It was scheduled to leave at 8 p.m. I arrived extra early for my supposed 8 a.m. flight. Lovely.

6. And last but not least I washed my phone with our laundry *Sigh* maybe it's a hint that I need to slow down a bit.

Needless to say I'm sure I'm not done with my p-brain moments and I hope that you have all had a good laugh from one or more of my pregnancy experiences.

Baby Girl

We are so happy to announce that I'm pregnant, and that we will be welcoming our little lady in the beginning on August.

Ever since we found out in December it's been fun talking about being parents, discussing names, and letting our family know. But now I can begin making baby clothes, bows, stuffed animals, blankets etc.

We had the wonderful opportunity to go down to Pocatello this past week to have our 20 week appointment with the midwife. While we were there we also had an ultrasound to make sure everything was normal and healthy and tell us the gender of our little one.

The ultrasound was so amazing getting to see her move around, yawn, and touch her precious little toes. It was an amazing experience.

The day after our ultrasound I was experiencing some unusual bleeding so I called the midwife and she strongly suggested we come back that day. So somehow we were able to rearrange work schedules and drive down. They did another ultrasound where they found a small tear in the placenta (about 1.75 cm). The midwife told me, thankfully, that I would not need to be on bed rest, but I can't lift anything, exercise, or even walk to fast. Her exact words were "you really have to just take it easy." It's not terrible... but I do miss being active. On the other hand I'm very glad that little miss is fine and healthy and that hopefully with some rest I will be too!

L.A. Weekend

This weekend we had the most wonderful time visiting Austin and Whitney in L.A. We have missed having these two around so much. We were able to find an awesome deal on tickets so we decided to make a long weekend of it!

Austin has a selfie stick that he let us play around with at our day at the beach.

On Friday we spent the most glorious afternoon hanging out at the pool. We put together some sweet video footage which I will be editing into an amazing "workout" video spoof  of P90X at the pool as well so stay tuned for that.

They were so generous to let us come and take over their home. Check out Whitney's cute blog here.

On Saturday we got to go to San Diego and explore Point Loma. Talk about gorgeous! We had so much fun hiking along the beach paths, and playing in the tide pools.

Thank-you Austin and Whitney!!

Visit to CA

This last week I had the wonderful opportunity to visit my mom in sunny, warm California. It was the best birthday present ever.

I had some of the best birthday creme brulee ever, from the wonderful Gayle's bakery. We were super sneaky getting birthday pictures with the candle.

There was lots of dancing,walking, and napping in the sun.

Selfies!

The tide-pooling at natural bridges is amazing! The anemones were so beautiful with vibrant colors, lots of sea snails, and little crabs.

Sand castle building!

Thank you mom for such a fun trip!

Happy 2015!

I have never been much of a late night person, and new years eve was no exception, particularly when your husband has to work until 1am, and then again at 7 am. So needless to say I slept through the ending of 2014 and into the beginning of 2015.

Something that I always love about a new year is the opportunity to set goals! I enjoy setting goals and will be sharing some of these on this blog. One of the most helpful tools I have found when setting goals is the S.M.A.R.T. goal method (you can read more about it here).

In a nutshell:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable 

Result-focused

Time bound

All Photos taken by Kaloni Udall

Happy 2015!

How to hem chiffon and other lightweight fabrics:

Learning how to sew is a lifelong process, I am, and will, always be picking up little tips and tricks to make my garments have a professional feel to them. This is one one my favorite tricks that I learned in my bridal wear sewing class at BYU-I. One of the other students who will forever stand out as a kindred spirit, and who I look up to as a mentor, taught me this wonderful method for hemming fine fabrics. 

Step one: chiffon has a tendency to warp and fray very easily, and as a result you must work carefully, with the goal of making your edges appear something like the edge I've shown below. Some additional trimming may be necessary before you begin. 

Step two: Put your chiffon under the presser foot, folded over about 1/8", DO NOT use pins to hold your fabric in place as this will slow you down and actually make it harder to get a clean edge. 

(if the picture below is confusing, keep reading it will make more sense as you go)

 Step 3: Sew all the way around the edge that you are finishing, do not back stitch, instead, simply continue sewing, finally sewing over where you started about 1".

This is the wrong side or back of the fabric

This side is the right side, the side that will be visible after the garment is finished

 Step 4: Fold the fabric over a second time as shown below, and again sew all the way around, with no back-stitching.

This is what the outside or right side of your finished garment will look like.

This is what the inside or wrong side should look like, you will be able to see both sets of stitching.

*For clarification the red thread (bobbin thread) marks the rights side of the fabric, and the purple (top thread) marks the back.

* This technique work well on chiffon, silks, peachskin, lining, or other lightweight fine fabrics.

More sewing

Here are a few more of my recent projects! I'm working hard on perfecting my pattern work, and streamlining my process. I have fabrics coming in the mail, and I'm looking forward to opening my etsy shop in the very near future!